Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Arubaito ❯ Discovery ( Chapter 5 )

Ch 5 (Discovery)

 

A/N: I am a little busy at the moment, being in the middle of last-minute major-essay-writing season at uni, so another update might be a while. HOWEVER.. just look how long this chapter is! I hope it will make up for the fact that I need to prioritize life a bit more for a little while, and only get to write for a few minutes here and there in between.

 

Disclaimer: Characters, worlds, people, games, and everything else is owned by and copyrighted Kazuki Takahashi. This is a non-for-profit fan work with no particular personal gain in mind. I own the writing and nothing else.

 

***

 

Seto was a strategist. He knew how to plan.

Coincidently, this made him really good at real time and turn based strategy games. That is, the kinds of games where one creates an army of soldiers and then takes them out into battle and crushes another fortress and defending army of serfs in a gallant and yet brutal show of force and technique. This is usually done in a bid for power and expansion of one's own empire, so in these kinds of games, one can not be satisfied with one's initial provinces. Was William the Conquerer satisfied with Normandy? No! He needed to take over England too. It's the same with any game of similar attitude - make an army to conquer a province to make more money for you to build a bigger army to conquer a bigger province for you to make even more money to build an even bigger army to conquer an even bigger province to…

Well, the idea was easy enough to follow. The point, however, was that all of this took a certain amount of skill and thought. Hitler didn't just wake up one morning, go to his military advisor and say; “You what's a fun thing? Territorial Invasion.” He thought about it, he planned it out.

And much like invading Poland, Seto had needed to plan out his acquiescence of Shichi Corporation. Including the more recent announcement that he was going to have Nobita Matsuno replaced.

On the other hand he didn't like to really put himself and Hitler on a comparable level. Whilst Hitler crippled nations, Seto wanted to improve output. Yes, he certainly did see some distinct differences between himself and the psychotic Arian fantasist. That said, Seto had put a lot of thought into his actions when dealing with the `Nobita Situation'. He never made a move without thinking of the consequences, and so when he had said to Nobita yesterday afternoon that he was fired, he had already considered that someone else would need to step in and fill the CEO's shoes until something a bit more permanent could be arranged. Nobita had been suitably surprised, but he had informed Seto that he had considered this possibility months ago when the company was first enveloped, and had already made his owns plans. Seto suspected these comprised of a long holiday away to the Bahamas' with his mistress. But it was really none of his concern, nor did he have any for the balding pile of incompetence. He also already knew who he was going to get to step in for a little while.

Seto didn't like putting too many people with similar ambitions to his own, on a level similar to himself. There were men he trusted, but these men were usually the people who organized his security systems, or the man who was his personal press secretary. They were people, at any rate, who had no ambitions to further themselves in any other areas. People who didn't want his job. So there was no `Ready-to-go-CEO' person that Seto could easily turn to in this kind of situation. So, bypassing his philosophical round table of executives, he had turned to other potential candidates. One who had stood out amongst the rest was a rather young man (although older than himself, as most people were at his office) who had been particularly supportive of his merger with Shichi Corporation, Yahada Youshi. Seto had naturally first brushed this off as the usual kiss-arsing every employee was expected to do where their boss was concerned, however he had seemed to have some ideas of his own behind the nodding and the exclamations of: “You're so right, that is a great idea Kaiba-sama!” He appeared to have a decent grasp of the situation itself as well, a thousand times more logical than anything that Nobita had pulled in the last term anyway, and all in all, Seto had felt the need to give the boy a chance to prove himself in this role. Besides, it was only temporary.

So he had gone and fired Nobita without hesitating because he had had a plan. He had a replacement, Yahada, so he had not worried about the decision. He knew Yahada would do a much better job, and that the company's let down's would start turning themselves around. As long as you had a plan there was no need to worry.

Someone knocked on his office door. It was a cheerful kind of a knock, the kind that was enthusiastic and for a moment you felt yourself wondering if what you were hearing was meant to be a tune, and whether you could remember what it was.

In this case it was Niita. Of course, Seto thought, making sure to look up at her in a strained kind of way, so that she knew she was interrupting him. And hopefully would also convey that by walking straight in after knocking instead of waiting for a reply defeated the whole purpose of knocking in the first place.

When she just stood there, looking pleasantly happy with the world, as she usually did, Seto felt the need to encourage; “Can I help you?” He also raised an eyebrow.

A piece of half-eaten pocky was hanging from her lips and it moved up and down ever so slightly, as if she was slowly chewing what couldn't be seen inside her mouth. Seto couldn't help but cringe inside; the thought was kind of gross. And he knew it was also kind of anal, but he couldn't help thinking of the amount of crumbs she had no doubt been spreading all over his new computer equipment outside. Didn't they teach children not to eat over a keyboard anymore?

She stopped chewing, took the uneaten pocky out, holding onto it with her left hand, and brought up a note in her right so that she could read it aloud. “China called. Apparently a guy named Yahada Youshi is staying in one of their hotels…”

“He's there on a business trip.” Seto input aloud. Did the girl have any idea just how big China was? Luckily he already knew most of the details of Yahada's trip; otherwise he would have been slightly annoyed at her inability to question for details. The man was due back tomorrow, in time to begin his temporary position.

As if reading his thoughts, Niita continued; “The hotel staff were apparently asked to pass on this message to you: Yahada has been in a car accident, and the hospital feels that at this time it would not be wise to fly him back to Japan. He will need at least two weeks solid rest over here, and they seemed to think he would be well enough to call within a few days.” She stopped, and looked up at her boss smilingly, as if what she had just said had not ruined his day completely.

Oh great, Seto thought, could he possibly have come up with a more melodramatic excuse to get out of work? He dismissed her thereafter, and she bounced out of the door, shoving the rest of the pocky into her mouth with enthusiasm. He was glad to hear the door shut.

It was typical, really, he'd seen it done before. A mention of Peer Support Seminars or OH&S Training, and suddenly everyone had a broken leg.

This ruined his well-made plans completely. That was why one should always, always have a Plan B.

And that was why it was equally as unfortunate that Seto didn't actually have a Plan B. Although he had always felt that an inept blind monkey with a fractured pelvis and a hearing aid could have run the company better than Nobita, he didn't actually want to put a monkey in the CEO's chair and see what happened.

Some theories were better left untested.

So that left him with finding a human replacement for Yahada. Someone who would not use this opportunity to vie for power and attempt to de-throne him with the help the position `CEO of Shichi Corporation' actually held. So that ruled out all of his executives and their direct underlings. He could insert someone from a different department but he felt that would be rather a move backwards than forwards. It was too late to actually advertise the position amongst perhaps competing companies or eager businessmen. He needed someone who could take charge of it tomorrow, who knew what he was doing and knew the history of the company, the take over, what his company needed to gain back, and had the ability to do it.

There was a mental pause where Seto finished thinking and then there was just blank while he grouped it all together and came up with the one answer he'd been trying to avoid for the last five minutes, but had known, five minutes ago, that he would eventually reach.

He'd have to do it himself.

 

Katsuya had become increasingly more anxious throughout the next day to find out what had gone on between his boss and, well, his boss's boss, just before he had walked in. But he was not due to work again until Saturday, so time seemed to be moving at an unreasonably slow rate. It took forever for classes to finish on Friday, it took hours to make the ten minute train ride back to his station, and his friends chattering voices beside him seemed drawn out and they never appeared to reach a full stop.

Stretching almost unconsciously once they'd finally reached the station, Katsuya remembered that he needed to buy some food for the next few days, and with a bright grin meant to annoy them, he announced they'd need to accompany him to the nearby supermarket. Honda and Yugi groaned but Anzu beamed at the idea of going shopping. Ever since he had moved out of home she had been trying at every opportunity to input into his shopping list, so that she knew there was some chance he would be eating well. For some reason she insisted on preaching that one could not live on simply packet noodles and miso soup alone.

“How can you possibly construct five basic food groups from that?!” She had cried, throwing her hands up into the air dramatically to emphasize that she was dismayed.

Katsuya had considered his answer then said; “Noodles. Soup. Games. Coffee. Sleep. Five basic food groups.”

She had snorted then walked off muttering, “You don't even drink coffee.”

Since Katsuya was now a `working man', Anzu figured she could try to sneak a few healthy things into his basket while they were down there. She bounced along the isles peering at all the wonderful things there were to buy.

They swiftly came to the noodle isle and Katsuya immediately turned to go down it, but Anzu reached out her arm and pulled on his elbow.

“Woah, woah… nothing instant! You learn to cook!” She said determinedly.

Katsuya shot her what he hoped was a threatening glare. It looked more like the kind of cute pout that young children have when someone has just said to them they have to pack away their textures because it was dinner time and they needed the room at the table.

“Anzu. I need my noodles. They are the food of life. I don't think you're quite getting this…”

“But they're not good for you! You can't keep a stable diet with only noodles. Plus don't you get bored of them?”

Katsuya mocked looking extremely shocked, “How can you even say that!? Honda, tell her she's wrong.” He inclined his head towards the brunet.

Honda grinned. “Anzu, noodles are the food of life.”

She glared at him then turned to Yugi.

“Food of life. Like they said.” He nodded cheerily with a huge smile; she would never be able to be annoyed with Yugi, even if he was siding with the enemy.

“Besides, you've already put this other random stuff in here…” Katsuya began to properly inspect Anzu's additions. “A banana… something that might be peas… uh, a small tree..?”

“It's called broccoli.” She said flatly.

“Oh.”

She huffed, knowing she was beaten simply by Katsuya's sheer stupidity in the face of nutrition, but didn't want to verbally admit it.

They started walking further down the isle. Katsuya grinned once more, “Well, I'll give you the honour of choosing which packet of noodles I eat this week?”

It brought a whole new meaning to `peace-offering'.

But Anzu took it. She scanned the isle for what could count as the healthiest instant noodles. She soon spied ones that came with optional dried vegetables. Those would have to do.

“Wow. I didn't realize how many brands there were of these things!” Honda never shopped except for picking up snacks at a deli. Once his mother had given him a grocery list which he had enlisted Katsuya's help in deciphering; they had spent almost an hour in the basement supermarket and had eventually emerged with three items on the list of 36, and the rest was made up of pounds of cold fish, some seaweed, bird seed, and any fruits or vegetables that they had thought looked particularly amusing.

“Oh yeah, you never run out of noodles. They bring out new kinds all the time. Like this one for instance…” Katsuya felt himself rather an expert on the food these days. He picked up a packet of cup noodles and handed them to Honda.

They had a picture of a smiling Japanese man dressed in a Genie suit with stars all around him and bright colours flashing out from every available bit of foam. They were apparently `wishing noodles', which helped to explain the genie costume. They also promised to grant you your three most important wishes: “Comes with Chopsticks. No Need to Add Flavor. Just Pour Water.”

Neat.

Anzu peered at the cup Katsuya had selected. “Oh no, you're getting this one.” She dumped her own selection into his basket.

“Dude. Those don't even have a mascot!” Honda said, chuckling. She glared at him, although it was somewhat half-hearted.

“Why don't you get both?” Yugi suggested.

“Yes. Good idea.” Katsuya smiled annoyingly at Anzu and placed his own selection next to hers. But she was no longer mad. He hadn't taken out the vegetables, and that was more than she had even hoped to get.

“Alright, alright.” She smiled once more.

They eventually headed to the check out and for the first time in what felt like a very long time indeed, Katsuya hadn't needed to worry about how much he spent and sit there with a calculator working out how many packets of what he could afford down to the last yen. Well, he had, but not to the same extent in any case.

Katsuya was with his friends and was laughing again; time was beginning to flow at a normal rate once more. With any luck Saturday would come tomorrow, instead of next year.

 

***

 

What got Seto through his first two days was the reminder that his having to be here was only temporary, and that once he had finished here he could put all his time and effort into finding someone more permanent to replace him.

That and, he felt his life was just that much more bearable when Niita wasn't around. She had been calling him from his across-town office however, usually when it was most inconvenient for him, throughout the day. He had to stop and wonder whether in his absence she had turned the place into some sort of cram school for nail polish-wearing bleach-dyed relationship-journalists. Unfortunately, it was not too hard to imagine. With added thoughts like these he felt even more `office-sick' than he already did with just the fact that he wasn't sitting in his normal chair or behind his normal desk or yelling at his normal employees.

That was the other problem with moving suddenly to a new host of employee minions; none of them were used to Kaiba Seto coming into their workplace everyday. He was the Kaiba Seto, a name almost every person in Domino City knew. People feared him and hated him and loved him and some apparently even wanted to marry him. Granted, some people were crazy, but there was nothing Seto could have done about that. The people in his normal office were used to him arriving everyday, they were polite and respectful, but they didn't stare at him wonderingly and start whispering whenever he was in the vicinity. That was just another thing that seemed to bug him about this new office. It would take awhile for things to settle down and the company to get used to him being there. A small part of him felt sorry for them, knowing that once he found a replacement or Yahada returned, they would need to repeat the process all over again.

Not to the same extent of course. Because, to re-iterate, he was THE Kaiba Seto.

Nobody turned more heads than him.

Although, maybe, a giraffe wearing a pink dress and a top hat and carrying an umbrella riding on a bright red double decker bus may turn quite a few heads as well.

But it would be a steep competition.

Sasaki stared neatly down at him. She emanated neatness like a toilet emanates a bad smell. As such she probably would not have thought this was a very pleasing comparison. She was saying something about files and paper and he was actually listening but it was hard to get over how pointy her nose was.

“These are the rest of the files you asked for; sorry they are a bit late but I had other pressing matters I needed to attend to,” Sasaki was probably the only person in the entire office who would have the nerve to imply something was more important than Kaiba. But it did make him remember that fetching things was not actually her job. “Jonouchi will be here tomorrow to fill in that kind of work for you.” She almost sneered at the idea of being such a petty errand-girl. She must have realized, however, that a sneer really didn't suit her nose.

Jonouchi? He'd almost forgotten that the mutt worked here. Well, that confirmed his earlier suspicions; the boy was obviously some sort of filing assistant. Probably had a similar job to Niita if he had understood Sasaki's implications. The idea was suddenly amusing, mainly because it entailed an image of Jonouchi spontaneously deciding to paint his nails red.

He nodded at Sasaki and she took the non-verbal cue to leave. Well, at least tomorrow there would be one person who didn't whisper behind his back or stare at him when he walked past. Jonouchi would probably yell at his face then proceed to follow it through with a fist instead. Seto struggled to decide which was more appealing.

 

Katsuya had tried to mentally prepare himself for every possible scenario that he would find at work that day. They ranged from everything being just peachy, wherein Kaiba's visit had just been a routine inspection, to arriving to find a hoard of raging antelope's cracking into the cocoa beans in the lunch room. They did include, however, the possibility that Nobita had been fired and, in an even worse possibility, he would find Kaiba in the office to replace him. It wasn't the most desirable scenario, granted, but he had tried to tell himself to prepare for it all the same. He wasn't just going to stand there dumbstruck this time. And he wasn't going to let the jerk ignore him.

He was never usually the first person there, which had led him to believe that other people started earlier than him. It was a fairly logical conclusion. So even though there were less people at the office than on a weekday, the atmosphere when he arrived was still slightly tense. It seemed to rub off on you, like some sort of clingy attitude infection, and he immediately felt himself become slightly more alert.

“Uh… How's the Saturday Sasaki-san?” He said in the cheeriest voice he could muster to the receptionist as he walked in. She still didn't like him all that much, but since he at least knew her name he made a point of greeting her when he came to work in the morning and being polite enough to say goodbye at the end of the day.

She glared up at him, trying to make it look like he was interrupting, but the attempt sort-of back fired as he saw her hastily try to cover up a beauty magazine with some papers. “Just fine.” She said irritably, “Don't you have work to catch up on?”

Katsuya usually spent the first part of any shift finishing off the jobs that had piled up in his absence, since he did not work every day. This usually consisted of being met with a huge stack of paperwork to be filed bright and early on a Saturday morning. “Probably.” He smiled at her, taking his time to walk away so that she wouldn't be able to get back to her reading as quickly as she would have liked.

It was definitely still tense; Sasaki's usual attitude towards him wasn't an indication of anything. He could have been handing her a check for a million yen and she still would have found an opportunity to be irritated with him. There was only one way to find out what had happened on Thursday afternoon: go to Nobita's office and ask him. Or ask the person who was there instead.

He found his way to the CEO's door, didn't let himself gain anymore hope when the name plate still read Nobita, and opened the door without knocking.

Okay so that last part was mostly habit.

He was glad he had done all that mental preparing and whatever else Anzu had been going on about. Kaiba's cold eyes glanced up at him from the screen he had been staring at. Instead of using Nobita's computer, Kaiba had set up his own laptop on the desk, something Katsuya vaguely remembered him never really being without.

Seto didn't say anything but leaned back into a proper sitting position as Katsuya walked in and stood before his desk. The blonde crossed his arms and glared down at him.

It was nice being taller than Kaiba for once, Katsuya reflected. “What happened to Nobita?” He already knew the answer of course.

“Isn't it obvious?” Kaiba sounded just as disdainful and pompous as he remembered, “Or have you managed to lose even more brain cells in the last few years?”

Katsuya's glare didn't falter, “What was wrong with him? He was the first nice business person I've met in my entire life. And you go and sack him.”

Seto raised an eyebrow, “I'm sorry, next time I'll consult your personal choice of business role models before deciding on an impacting career move.”

They hadn't seen each other for a few years now, but their conversation had already started flow like the time lapse had been only ten minutes. But both felt slightly calmer than they remembered ever being during any of their encounters in the past. Katsuya, in any case, didn't feel like ramming his fist into Kaiba's face.

Yet.

Give it another five minutes or so, he thought.

Katsuya made a sort of disgruntled noise in place of any immediate comeback, but Kaiba seemed to be continuing right on anyway; “Do you have a problem with the turn of events, Jonouchi?” Seto sounded calm, but his voice held an obviously veiled threat.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Katsuya raised an eyebrow. What was he supposed to say? Oh yes, he loved the fact that Kaiba got to personally order him around all day. It was what he had always dreamed of doing when he grew up.

Actually, maybe that was what Kaiba wanted to hear. Katsuya had never exactly bothered to try to decipher the man before. He got as far as: stupid annoying git, and then left it in search of something more pleasant to think about.

Kaiba was still staring at him, daring him to answer with anything else. Katsuya suddenly felt like fidgeting under that cold gaze, and he started to worry about something else. Not only was there the chance he would be fired when the company was downsized (which, he had made the assumption, it was probably going to be) but there was an even greater chance that he would be fired simply because Kaiba didn't like him. Did he even want to be there if this was the person he had to put up with every shift? Yugi had said to ignore him and get on with his work; well, he guessed he could do that easily enough.. right? But would Kaiba just get rid of him before he had a chance to prove to the man that yes, they could ignore each other if they just put their minds to it?

He had decided he was going to try his best with this job, be his boss the embodiment of evil or not, and to start off with, he had to go about convincing Kaiba that the whole situation had absolutely nothing to do with him.

“I didn't know you owned this place when I applied for this job.” Katsuya stated, with a look of determination, his voice doing a complete 180 from the biting tones he'd first adopted upon entering. He really wanted to make this clear to Kaiba; that it wasn't by choice that the situation had ended up this way.

The Gods just didn't like him, that's all.

Seto raised an eyebrow, “Uh-huh.”

Katsuya tried to intensify his look, but it wasn't really having any obvious effect.

“I don't care.” Seto stated finally. “It doesn't really matter how you got here, you're working here now and I don't really want to have to go through the annoyance of advertising your position during my first week here as it would cut into at least three minutes of my time.”

Katsuya was a little lost, he thought Kaiba was implying that that was what would happen if Katsuya quit. Which is what he thought Kaiba thought he was thinking about doing. So did that mean Kaiba wasn't thinking about firing him? He just thought Katsuya would quit? But he had said he didn't want to be bothered with that… so did that mean Kaiba was hoping Katsuya wouldn't quit, so he wouldn't have to bother with hiring someone new?

“Do you need me to rephrase that, mutt?”

“No.” Katsuya was pretty sure he didn't, anyway. “And don't call me that.” He glared at the CEO, who apparently couldn't go more than a minute without insulting him. But all of a sudden he felt happier, like a weight had been lifted off his chest once again. Kaiba hadn't exactly said it in as many words, but he didn't want Katsuya to just up and leave, and that was good enough for him.

“So,” Katsuya continued, much happier than he had been all morning, but not quite allowing himself a full smile, “Is there something you want me to do?”

 

Seto was feeling a small sense of relief that Katsuya's first words hadn't been: “I quit.” It was just annoying having to find new people on short notice. He'd experienced first hand how badly it could turn out when hiring a new assistant as quickly as possible. He didn't think he would have been able to restrain himself from killing something if he had had to deal with a Niita duplicate at this office as well. Although he hated Jonouchi on principle, he knew that when the boy was determined to do something, he got it done. So Seto just hoped he would approach his day job with as much determination.

As long as he was better than Niita, Seto would be happy.

He thought about Jonouchi's question and looked around the office trying to remember where he'd left the paperwork he'd finished last night. “You can put those away,” He motioned to a stack of papers he'd left on top of a bookshelf, “Don't you have lots of other things you usually do?”

“Uh, not really.” Katsuya admitted, walking over to pick up the papers. “I do whatever anyone needs me to around here. You'd be surprised how many odd jobs an assistant actually does.” He threw Seto a look that implied he thought the CEO would never have understood the lives of the common folk.

Seto almost agreed with him, he certainly couldn't ever see Niita doing any real work. Unless you could count typing personal emails and whipping out a mirror to check her hair was still styled properly every 5 minutes proper work.

“I have had my fair run of personal assistants in my time at Kaiba Corp. I think I know what they do.” Seto said sarcastically.

Katsuya looked up at him before leaving the room to store away the precious files, “I've no doubt.” He said with amusement and an evident grin now. Then he slipped out the door and out of sight.

Seto stared. No way did Jonouchi get to mock him!

Wow, if that didn't sound childish enough… He rolled his mental eye and sighed. Ah well, he'd find some other way to enact revenge, have no doubt.

 

***

 

Revenge came in the form of the most complex order of coffee Katsuya had ever heard before. Seto wasn't about to admit it to his new assistant, but it had taken him a good ten minutes to come up with all the extra features. Actually, it had been kind of fun.

But he wasn't about to admit that, either.

He was just happy being about to sit comfortably in his temporary office while he knew Jonouchi was out somewhere walking the streets, probably very annoyed with him, but still having to complete the coffee-task.

What did they call it when you got your kicks from pushing other people around? He couldn't remember but, he was pretty sure he related to it.

 

“Sadistic bastard!” Katsuya hissed, walking along the street and pulling his jacket closer around his chest. A wind had decided to perk up just as he'd walked outside, and initially it had threatened to steal his order away from him. The tiny piece of paper held Kaiba's annoyingly neat handwriting, outlining exactly the kind of complex coffee he had ordered Jonouchi to get.

Yeah, that's right, ordered. As in, no asking involved, Katsuya thought irritably. What's more he couldn't just go to the café a few doors down like he did for everyone else in the office, Kaiba had had to request he walk all the way across the block, down an alley, up a few more side streets, through a park, over a bridge, and across a train line to get to a tiny coffee shop Katsuya had never heard of.

Luckily for him, Kaiba hadn't specified a time he needed to be back, since it was probably going to take awhile to return. He thought off-handedly that by that time his boss's coffee would be cold anyway.

It was indeed a very small shop. From the outside it looked like a tea room, but one of the weekly special posters in the window did specify coffee, so Katsuya pushed open the door and wandered inside. It had a very pleasant atmosphere, and it wasn't too crowded which was a feature he had always admired.

He walked over to the counter and a young woman soon appeared and smiled brightly up at him. “How can I help you today sir?” She extracted a pen and small pad from her apron automatically, there was a click as she pressed the ink down and her hand finally finished moving poised steady and ready to write just above the paper.

Katsuya motioned for her that it was not necessary to take notes, and handed her the already-written instructions. As she read over them her smile faltered. She looked back up at him; “I'm sorry, but we don't actually have a drink of this kind on our menu.”

“Oh.” Katsuya frowned, “Well, do you at least have all the ingredients?”

She nodded, “Yes, but they don't usually mix well together, if you will?” She was desperately trying to explain to him what he already understood; the drink was simply a concoction of the most random ingredients Kaiba could think of.

“It's not actually for me,” He tried to reassure her he wasn't a complete moron, “But I have to take it back to someone you see? So, if you could make it I would pay for all the extra bits.”

She sighed, but then smiled again, remembering about `customer care' and all of those other silly rules impressed upon the face to face sales industry. “Of course sir, it'll just be a few minutes.”

He threw her a thankful look before she wandered off to start the precarious invention. He walked off to find a table to sit at while he waited, figuring it would probably take a little bit longer than a few minutes. If only because she would need to go out of her way to actually find all of the ingredients. He was just about to sit down when someone called out his name.

Looking around frantically and blinking like he had been struck dumb, he tried to locate the source of the summoning.

A smiling head of white hair waved at him from stall a few metre's away. Katsuya finally smiled and returned the distance greeting. He made his way over there and Ryou motioned for him to sit down. Katsuya slid into the seat across from him, only at the last minute realizing that he had just sat down right next to..

He let out a small `eek' of shock. Bakura rolled his eyes disinterestedly, he had been sitting there the whole time; clearly Ryou's friend was just too stupid to have noticed. “Surprise.” He said dryly.

Ryou had let out a small chuckle at Katsuya's reaction. But he could sympathise, people didn't see Bakura much these days. The spirit of the Millennium Ring, although quite happy to be around other people when the occasion involved stealing their wallet, had a whole other anti-social side. Although Ryou suspected that there was more to it, Bakura openly claimed his hate of every living person and chose to believe that this was why he disliked spending time with anyone in particular.

“Uh…” Katsuya leaned forward over the table and put a hand up to his mouth to whisper to Ryou; “What's he doing here?!”

“There are less obvious ways to whisper. Jeez, have a sense of conspiracy would you?” Bakura actually looked more amused than annoyed. He was smirking.

Actually, Katsuya was surprised to find, Ryou looked like he was quite amused as well. He also looked more relaxed than normal somehow. “Bakura doesn't get to come out of the Ring very much; I figured he might enjoy the fresh air.”

Bakura muttered something about `mothering him'.

“But, Ryou, he's a psychopath.” Katsuya had a tone similar to that of an adult explaining to a child that they should not run with scissors because they were likely to fall on them and pierce their lower intestines,

“And psychopaths don't need fresh air. They need confinement. And straight jackets.” Katsuya explained.

Ryou simply smiled again, “Don't worry; he hasn't done anything horrible in a long time.”

“Doesn't mean he couldn't start now.”

“Dog-boy has a point.” Bakura grinned fiendishly, but Ryou wouldn't hear any more on it.

Another thought suddenly struck Katsuya, “Uh… you guys aren't… like… on a date or anything, are you?” It was embarrassing just to ask.

“Urgh… no.” Ryou looked almost revolted at the idea. At the same time a strange look passed over Bakura's face, but neither of the other boys were looking at him at that precise moment, so they both missed it.

And just as quickly it was gone.

He scoffed, “Humans have such stupid ideas.”

Katsuya was slightly red now; he threw his hands up in the air and apologized, “heh heh… sorry guys.” If he had been an anime character he would have sweat-dropped.

“Jonouchi?” The assistant's voice called out to the general crowd of patrons.

“Ah.” Katsuya jumped up. Saved by the coffee, he thought.

He made his way back over to the end of the counter where she waited with a rather large cup that had a raised lid.

“A double mocha triple berry extra chocolate with hazelnuts, cream centred…”

Katsuya raised a hand to stop her, “Save it.” He sighed. She smiled half-heartedly at him, as he took the cup from her. It was nice and warm, and suddenly he was glad to be able to make the return trip with it since it was sure to still be windy and thus cold outside when he ventured back out there.

He handed over the money to her, then turned back to where his friend was sitting.

“Well, I've got to head off and deliver this to Kaiba. Hopefully it will be cold by the time he gets it.” Katsuya grinned evilly.

“Kaiba? What the hell are you getting him coffee for!?” Bakura seemed a bit surprised, so perhaps Ryou hadn't passed on that Katsuya was working for him now.

In fact, Katsuya hadn't passed that on to anyone yet, since he had only just found it out himself that morning.

Ryou reiterated the same question but without swearing.

“Oh. Right. Well, turns out that he fired my boss and his replacement fell through or something so now he has to do the job for awhile.”

Ryou looked sympathetic, knowing that this must have annoyed Katsuya very much. Bakura, on the other hand, burst out laughing.

“So, let me get this straight: you, as assistant to whatshisname, who got fired, now has to be assistant to Kaiba, the biggest prick in history, and he has you running all over town fetching him coffee like a good little doggy? And you do this willingly?!” He cracked up laughing all over again.

Katsuya growled, this time really annoyed with the spirit; “Shut the fuck up! I know it's a concept you can't understand, but I actually need the money so I can live. I hate Kaiba, I didn't even know he owned the place when I started, otherwise I never would have tried to get a job there!”

“Woah woah, no need to get so defensive…” Bakura was grinning at him somewhat triumphantly. He looked like he thought Katsuya's protesting spoke volumes of un-voiced ulterior meaning.

That just annoyed Katsuya even more. Ryou threw him a pained kind of look, and apologized on his yami's behalf.

He took it as a good cue to leave, since he needed to get back soon anyway. He pointedly said goodbye to Ryou whilst ignoring Bakura, who only found this even more amusing, and finally left the shop after what seemed a lot longer than he had originally hoped to spend on just getting coffee. Bakura, despite himself, had given Katsuya more to think about whilst he walked all the way back to the office.

In the end, however, Katsuya decided he didn't give a shit what Bakura thought of him. He needed to keep this job to be able to keep himself clothed and fed and sheltered, and it hadn't exactly been an unbearable day working with Kaiba. He had avoided the big-headed jerk for the most part, and if all it took to get his pay check was walking half-way across the suburb to fetch him coffee well, then at least Katsuya was getting fresh air and exercise and putting as much distance between them as possible.

If this was all it took, he thought, he would survive.

 

***

 

End Note: No, I'm not suddenly making any other main pairings for this fic (what pairings anyway, eh?) but I just felt that YGO has so many great characters in it, it was about time I started including them a little bit more. Or at least give two of them a little tiny scene in this chapter anyway. I haven't thought about any such similar anythings in the future. Everything is yet to be decided.

Anyhoo, see you next time!~